


Oxytocin at First Sight

by awkwardedgeworth



Series: Hippocratic Oath [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Med AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 23:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11839218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardedgeworth/pseuds/awkwardedgeworth
Summary: "First time seeing a dilated cervix?" Otabek is definitely laughing at him with his eyes. Yuri has a sudden urge to stab something with his scalpel."No, I saw quite a lot of them when I was in my OBG rotation," He manages through gritted teeth. Those were bad memories he'd successfully repressed. "Doyoulook at dilated cervices often?"in which yuri is paired up with the new, devastatingly good looking doctor, and otabek is oblivious to the far-fetched, ludicrous gossip surrounding him





	Oxytocin at First Sight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [happymaybe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/happymaybe/gifts).



> for the lovely happymaybe, who shares a mutual passion of med AUs and fueled me to write this otayuri that's been in the back burner since the first med au i posted
> 
> lilia: head of the emergency department (ED)  
> yakov: chief ER physician  
> jj and seung-gil: trauma surgeons, they do lots of surgeries together  
> victor: trauma surgeon, former ER physician.  
> yuuri: another trauma surgeon  
> chris: ER physician  
> otabek: fellow, will be learning under victor  
> mila: chief resident of the ED, looks after all the residents  
> yuri and minami: incoming first year residents, they graduated from the same school
> 
> there will be mentions of car crashes, maggots, stabbing, vomiting, screaming children and other great things you'll find in the ER and surgery room. please be cautious. most of the scenarios are based off my own experiences.
> 
> i tried coming up with a witty medical title and this is what my brain comes up with :')) apologies
> 
> self beta'd
> 
> EDIT: -YELLS- I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT HAPPYMAYBE GAVE ME THE IDEA OF BEKA DELIVERING A BABY IN THE BACK OF AN UBER. SO SORRY
> 
> Edit Aug 19/17: minor grammar edits. and yes, this will have a sequel
> 
> Edit Aug 21/17: gah!! another small edit at the "medicine isn't about..." part

He stares at the board with blank eyes.

Because right beside his name on the long awaited list that said which residents are paired up with which mentors are the words 'Not Applicable'. 

"Yakov!"

"That's Dr. Feltsman to you, Yuri!" Yakov roars, but allows Yuri to barge into his office without knocking. He manages to smooth out the crumpled piece of paper in his fist, stabbing with his finger where his name is.

Yakov mumbles something like a prayer under his breath.

" _What is this?_  How can I have no mentor?!"

"You know our ER is short staffed," Yakov slowly says, deflecting Yuri's death glares by closing his eyes. "We do have one for you, he just isn't flying into the city until next week."

"What are his credentials? Where did he graduate from?" Yuri fires off, leaning in closer and closer, "You promised Victor, but that little—"

" _Language_."

"How come Minami got Giacometti?!"

There are only several things that gets under his skin. One of them is his flighty family friend, though it was a stretch to call Victor a friend since he's anything but these days, switching into surgery to shoot moony eyes at the new surgeon who came to the hospital several months ago. Yuri had met the man— always in poodle scrubs when he's doing rounds— and he seemed nice. If not a little jumpy.

The second is that he worked his ass off to get to where he is. He slaved all of high school and pre-med to get his acceptance and then brawled his classmates to the death to be assigned to a hospital near his apartment.

So it's unfair. Un-fucking-fair that Minami, who failed the MCAT not once but  _twice_ thus making him in the same year Yuri, got a mentor instead of him!

He'd rather have Chris's grabby hands instead of an unknown someone, regardless of their qualifications.

Yakov takes a very deep breath and pinches his nose bridge, "Dr. Altin is coming here as a fellow and he's agreed to take you on while learning under Vitya. You'll learn good techniques from him, Yurochka. He was in the honours program in his bachelors. Graduated early too."

Yuri seethes, "Oh would you look at that, I was also too, in the honours program!"

"Yura."

Yuri opens his mouth to object the unknown doctor again but closes his mouth, fighting to reel in his anger and disappointment as he glares at the table.

"I know you're disappointed."

He nods once and keeps his mouth shut. No matter, Victor's dead to him anyway. All he needs to do is get through his residency and achieve a good report from whomever Dr. Altin is. Then he can be an official member of the ED and treat patients without a mentor breathing down his neck.

The phone on Yakov's desk shrills, interrupting them. Yuri quickly mumbles a quiet apology and runs out of the room with the paper he'd ripped off the announcement boards.

"Yuri?"

It's Mila. She sees the paper in his hands and leads him out from the emergency department towards the lobby where they exit out of the side doors into one of the inner courtyards.

"Let's see that here."

He wordlessly hands her the form, watching her expression fall when she catches his name and the blankness of his eyes.

The chief resident of the ER department hugs him, patting large circles into his back as Yuri breathes in her flowery hair and squeezes her back.

"It'll be okay," She reassures him like his residency isn't dependent on making sure his mentor is impressed with his diagnostic skills and patient bedside manners and a whole page of what the ideal physician is supposed to be.

"Yeah."

"Do you know who it is?"

"Someone called Altin. Have you heard of him?"

Her pager goes off. She scowls slightly at the little machine with green panels but tucks a piece of hair into her loosening bun, "No, sorry. Why don't we get dinner tonight at your favorite place?"

"Sure."

"It'll all be okay, Yuri," But even she knows that not all doctors are as fair as the ones they know within their circle. It shows in her smile.

Exhausted, he only nods, watching her run back in, white doctor coat billowing after her as she sprints.

Then it starts to rain. He glowers at the sky for giving him the proverbial middle finger, digging into his satchel bag for an umbrella as he makes his way to the car parkade, ready to go home and spend the rest of his last day before doom starts curled up on the couch with his cat.

 

On a bright Monday morning a week after clinicals have officially started, he walks into the on-call room and smooths out his white coat for a morning meeting, standing next to Mila silently as Lilia stands primly at the head of a long, rectangular white table. 

There's someone next to her.

Minami falls in place beside him, looking worse for wear as Chris stumbles into the morning meeting and takes his seat in front of Minami in scrubs, eyes glazed with tiredness.

Lilia sniffs. Yakov pushes a bottle of allergy medications in her direction. She ignores him.

"We will be welcoming Dr. Altin from here on," Lilia says in a very nasally voice, "Our department is pleased to offer him a fellowship in Trauma and Acute Care Surgery under Dr. Nikiforov.  _Yuri Plisetsky!_ "

At the sudden call, he yelps, "Yes?"

"You will do well to learn under him," She peers at him above her glasses. It sounds more like a threat than an encouragement— she'll be the one to read the report Dr. Altin will submit to Yakov, which will be given to her for review. Yuri schools his features into what he thinks is a smile, watching several older residents across of him wince.

Across him, Seung-gil raises his eyebrows faintly, arms crossed as JJ, beside him, looks ecstatic at the thought of another surgeon joining the team.

"Off you go!" Lilia dismisses them, snatching the pill bottle from Yakov and promptly exiting the on-call room. They all rush to their stations while the new doctor approaches Yuri.

Yuri blinks, tilting his head down to make eye-contact. Dr. Altin is shorter than he thought but commands a certain presence that makes him seem impressive despite being vertically challenged. 

"Yuri, right?" He offers a hand. He's sharply dressed in a crisp dark blue shirt with black pants, his white coat at his side. Yuri fuzzily takes it, feeling the callous and wondering what the doctor does in his spare time. Those weren't exactly the hands of someone going into surgery.

"Nice to meet you," Yuri fumbles, "Dr. Altin."

"Likewise. Call me Otabek," Dr. Altin insists, grinning.

"Sure," He faintly hears himself say. Maybe he's having a heart attack. Aneurysm? Who knows? If he's going down at least it's to the most devastating good looking face he's seen in his short life. By the swooning of the few still hovering in the room, they agree with him.

Lilia sticks her head back into the room, "Altin! Bed 3, an expecting mother in her twenties is a victim of a minor car crash with a potential head wound. OBYGN is rushing but you have to check her head first! Get to it!"

Otabek asks in a very level tone as Yuri leads both of them running out of the room, not expecting a sudden case so early in the morning and especially not on the doctor's first hour on shift, "You're not squeamish right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there's probably going to be a lot of fluid and blood."

Yuri is suddenly terrified when they pull back to curtain to see the bed absolutely drenched in amniotic fluid, blanket sopping wet and the sheets soaked. The mother is a nervous mess of energy and tears as she clings onto the rails. She's breathing hard as Otabek introduces them.

"The OBG will be here shortly but we have to take a look at your injuries first, alright? Any headaches, pains or tenderness?" Otabek gently presses her head, turning his full attention to her. 

While he does that, Yuri checks her pupillary reflex with a small light and gauges her pain reflex, jotting down on her chart as Otabek relays to him the state of her heart and lungs. His hands are nearly cramping with the speed he's scribbling information down, trying to keep up. 

"N-No."

Otabek excuses himself and flips her gown up to check how dilated she is. Yuri feels the world tilt slightly.

"How far along are you?"

"34 weeks."

"Preterm, I see. Cramps? Contractions?" Otabek prompts.

"None so far," She whimpers, teary-eyed. "Where's my husband? He was in the car too, I don't know where he is."

Otabek turns to Yuri, who's standing absolutely rooted to his legs. His face is probably white, by the way Otabek smiles at him, "Why don't you check with the Head Nurse where he is?"

He takes the offered exit like a lifeline, dashing away and nearly colliding with a tech pushing a monitor towards Bed 3. The curtain is yanked closed and Yuri, still faint, walks on shaky, fawn-like legs as he confirms that the husband is on his way with only a minor gash on his cheek from the crash scene.

When two techs wheel the mother cheerily to another ward, Yuri tells the expecting father to follow them as Otabek disposes his bloody gloves and washes his hands, not a strand of hair out of place.

"Uh."

"First time seeing a dilated cervix?" Otabek is definitely laughing at him with his eyes. Yuri has a sudden urge to stab something with his scalpel.

"No, I saw quite a lot of them when I was in my OBG rotation," He manages through gritted teeth. Those were bad memories he'd successfully repressed, sue him for being slightly queasy. "Do  _you_ look at dilated cervices often?"

"Dr. Altin!" Mila yells from the other end of the room, "Bed 7!"

Bed 7 was admitted ten minutes ago while Yuri was dawdling and making small talk with the husband of Bed 3. It's another pregnant lady. What is up with Dr. Altin attracting all the pregnant women about to go into labour?

Otabek nudges with him with his shoulder as he takes the patient's chart from the nurse station, tone slightly teasing, "Come on, I'll refresh your memories."

"Lovely," Yuri croaks.

 

He shrugs off his coat and dives into the couch.

Seung-gil yelps and holds the popcorn bowl over his head, dressed in scrubs patterned with huskies, "Hey!"

"UGH!" Yuri explains, curling up into a ball and resting his head on Seung-gil's thigh. JJ doesn't look up from his textbook, earbuds in his ear as he looks over his surgery notes before he has to go in the OR. His hideous lavender scrubs makes Yuri's eyes hurt, so he closes them, burrowing further into Seung-gil's lap.

"Is Dr. Altin that terrible? I heard otherwise from the nurses."

" _No_ ," Yuri spits, "He's terrific! He's efficient, polite, and already knows where everything is in the department in the first thirty minutes! He doesn't yell at the residents and is very patient when it comes to lab results!"

Seung-gil offers some popcorn to him, "...So what's the problem?"

Mila finds him sulking later after Seung-gil and JJ has to leave for their surgery. She brings her lunch to him and sticks her feet up on the coffee table, sighing in relief as she wiggles her toes.

"So how's your first day?"

"Ugh."

"Same," She sympathizes. "I can't feel my feet. Yakov's arthritis was acting up so I was doing the running for both of us."

"Altin is loads better than Yakov."

"What?!" Mila yells, indignant. "Then why are you so sad? I've been rushing patients from the ED to MRI and CT. Does it look like I'm a porter? Do you know how many times I nearly ran the patient bed into a corner?"

Yuri stays silent, glaring at his chicken wrap as if it had personally wronged him. Otabek Altin is  _the_ ideal mentor, and Yuri, along with the rest of the ER nurses, has fallen for him. In no less than eight hours, Otabek have already made most of the female and male masses in the ER dreamily sighing after him. That and some selected few of the prenatal ward. 

"Do you want to hear something ridiculous?" 

Yuri, who's spent after ranting about Otabek Fucking Altin, asks, "What is it?"

Mila leans in with a conspiratorial look, "I heard this from Dr. Chulanont. You know how he's as good as an OBG?"

"Yeah?"

"I heard that he once delivered a baby in the back of an uber."

Since Yuri has spent most of his morning looking after nervous fathers and checking how dilated the cervix is, he isn't all that surprised anymore, "Seems plausible."

Mila pats him on the hand, "Chin up, sweetie. Pregnant ladies rarely come through our doors."

Yuri snorts, but takes comfort in that, resting his head on her shoulder.

Now with the ER entering graveyard hours, the patient volume lulling, he aids Otabek stitch the leg of a DIU victim, the gash bright red and bleeding. The patient curiously watches Otabek's gloved hands poke the needle into the tissue of the cut after they've washed it with saline and made sure that there were no more glass embedded in the flesh.

Yuri struggles to remain focused and watch the suturing technique instead of Otabek's five o'clock shadow and what could be a subtle peek of metal on his tongue as he calmly tells the patient what he's doing.

"—ceps."

The suturing stops. The patient frowns at them.

Yuri slides his eyes to Otabek, who's also frowning at him.

"Forceps?" Otabek asks.

Yuri whirls to the little metal pan beside him that holds all the tools and hands him the correct instrument. By now, the patient doesn't look too amused.

"Those are scissors, are you even qualified?"

Yuri thinks about stabbing himself with scalpels as he hands Otabek forceps and takes back the scissors. The patient eyes him warily but turns her attention back towards Otabek as he tells her how to take care of the wound over the next few days and when she could come back in to get the stitches removed.

As she hobbles off to her family waiting outside, Otabek throws the gloves into the garbage can without batting an eye and washes his hands.

"How much sleep do you get per night, Yuri?"

Yuri joins him on the adjacent sink, feeling like he's being reprimanded even though Otabek's tone is soft, "I don't sleep well actually."

"Insomnia?"

"Yeah. I use it to study instead."

"Sleeping on the job is a hazard," They're walking back towards the on-call room now, Otabek telling the head nurse on duty to page them if there's any incoming patients. She chirps her okay, "What would help to make you stay awake?"

He falters, turning awkward as Otabek turns all of his attention to him, "Uh...I don't...know."

"Hm," Otabek peers at the clock on the wall, "Tell you what, it's quiet here and I need to prepare for a surgery anyway. You can go home early."

Holy shit. Otabek is his personal guardian angel.

"Really?"

In his excitement, his ID catches one of the lapels of the coat and he awkwardly stretches his left arm to yank it off, freezing in place when Otabek enters his personal bubble and puts on his reading glasses to tug it. Yuri stays still until his ID is free and Otabek is folding his coat over one arm, smiling.

"Sleep well," Otabek fondly says.

_Say something!_  his brain screams, "You too," Yuri blurts out.

The corner of Otabek's mouth twitches up.

Yuri stumbles to grab his laptop and bag, glad that two residences are knocked out on the couch so they don't have to witness his embarrassment as Otabek waves goodbye to him. He spends two minutes inside his car screaming before slamming his forehead repeatedly into the wheel, defeated.

 

_"I heard he saved a patient from pneumothorax by stabbing them with a pen!"_

_"Someone from oncology said that he helped their cousin fix a prolapsed uterus on a **cow** two years ago while he was on vacation. That and his older brother's a flight surgeon in the Air Force!"_

_"A cow? No way. Apparently he saved some foreign dignitary from no code on a transatlantic flight when he was a med student."_

_"That one's true, there was an article about it in the newspapers! Sarah's convinced that Dr. Altin appeared in a magazine when he was younger!"_

_"What? No way! But with looks like that he does look like a model rather than a doctor, doesn't he?"_

Mila snorts under her breath as Yuri waits for his shift to start, looking up from a paperback novel, "The nurses say the best things sometimes."

He was about to agree when the door to the on-call room opens, Otabek stumbling in a set of powder blue surgeon scrubs, the short sleeves exposing his arms. The nurses, who had been flipping through textbooks to find something, stop whispering.

He looks terrible. Yuri has a mind to nudge him to the nap room, but before that, Otabek lumbers towards them like a too handsome zombie extra.

"Mila, could you look after Yuri?"

"Yikes, what happened to you?"

"Complications after complications," Otabek clamps a hand over his mouth, covering his yawn, "I need to sleep or else I'll make mistakes. Sorry."

Mila nods and shoos him away where both of them watch Otabek collide with a bookcase before pawing blindly at one of the doors. The nurses dart out, giggling with each other.

"You're on double shift tonight right?"

Yuri tears his eyes away from the door, "Yeah."

Mila purses her lips, "Don't make too much trouble for him."

He pinches her arm, shrugging his coat on as he starts his rounds.

When the clock turns around, Mila waves goodbye and joins the rush hour traffic as Otabek rises from the dead looking a little sleepy still, but definitely refreshed enough to get an early dinner with Yuri in the cafeteria as they go over the rounds Yuri had made earlier in the day.

"What was the surgery for?"

Otabek blearily looks up, "Hm?"

"The surgery. You looked dead on your feet."

"Someone stabbed a seventeen year old three times. The knife came out of its handle and lodged itself between a rib, there was massive hemorrhaging and we nearly lost him," Otabek yawns, stirring in seven spoons of sugar and dumping three little containers of cream into his coffee. It doesn't even look like coffee anymore. "He's alright now, stable condition. I asked his nurse to send me updates on the hour. Lucky kid." 

Yuri watches as he fiddles around with his plastic knife. Otabek catches him staring and Yuri dives for a random patient and opens their chart, pointing to their EKG for a question.

The coffee seemed to have fully resurrected Otabek since he helps Yuri pop a dislocated shoulder back into place with the cheeriness of someone showing him their hometown as their patient screams in pain. After they walk away slightly disgruntled, Otabek tries to re-direct a five-year-old's attention away from the gash on his knee as Yuri stitches it up. 

"So you play Minecraft?" Otabek shouts above his cries, struggling to hold his flailing arms in place. The mother has left to make a phone call. "I used to play that when I was little!" 

The child screeches and screams bloody murder. The nurses at the station wince in synchronization.

"Kid," Yuri snaps at him, brandishing the thread as his patience runs thin, "I haven't even put the needle in you!"

" _GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO AWAY!_ "

"I'm sorry, but we have to do this, okay? Can you be brave for five minutes?"

" _NO!_ "

Yuri's ears are ringing by the time he snips the last thread and shoves the boy back to his mother's arms.

Before they move onto the next bed, Otabek pauses to read what the nurse had jotted down, "How are you with bugs?"

Yuri, unfazed, swipes away the curtain and takes a look at one gentleman's leg, maggots wriggling out of the dead tissue before sighing deeply and snapping his gloves on. Otabek claps his shoulder and rushes off to a team of paramedics wheeling in a man showing no code.

Fridays are the worst.  _Friday graveyard shifts are the worst_ , with college-aged drunkards making up half his patients. Just after three in the morning when the last ones are sent home with fluids, they receive a middle aged man suffering from food poisoning who has a very good aim and goes for Yuri's front as Otabek dodges.

"Here."

Otabek hands him his set of spare scrubs in the on-call room. Yuri takes it and receives death glares from various nurses as he trails sick towards the shower rooms.

"Why me, why me," He grumbles, pulling a new bar of soap out of the wrapping and scrubbing every last inch of his skin until it's pink and raw. Then he stuffs his vomit covered clothes and ties it into a plastic bag, shoving it into the furthest corner of the on-call room where it's staying there until he leaves his shift.

"Any more calls?"

Otabek shakes his head. Grateful for a lull in activity, Yuri collapses onto the chair across of him. His eyelids are heavy and his inner clock is telling him that it's time to sleep, regardless of the lone lamp lighting the room.

Yuri yawns, thinking of how he and Otabek make a good team.

"Why the emergency?"

The question is so soft that Yuri would have thought he was having auditory hallucinations if it weren't for Otabek looking up from his textbook, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled back to expose his wiry forearms.

"Grandpa had a heart attack during my last year of high school and collapsed. He was okay, but his health went downhill after that."

Nikolai died during his first year of post-secondary. Yuri had turned all of his grief into motivation, graduating pre-med with honours and awards tacked after his name.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Yuri shrugs, feeling the soft material of the scrubs, "What about you? What made you interested in surgery?"

A half shrug, "I like working with my hands," Then, "I can't really imagine doing anything else."

Yuri nods, knowing that feeling all too well, "At first, I thought I made a mistake going into medicine. My first few rotations were disastrous."

Otabek hums in understanding, "The patients, right?"

There were rude people he had to be professional to, elderly people asking to see a real doctor, attendings who treated him like he was worse than the dirt on their shoes, "Not all of them were horrible, but they wear you down on some days." 

Medicine isn't about locating and resolving a problem with the perfect blend of drugs and treatments. It was also about the patient and their family. Sometimes, the hardest part of his job was empathizing with them, to pull down his walls far enough so his sincerity could be picked up on without attaching himself too closely to his patients. 

"' _Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity._ '"

"...By Hippocrates."

"Did you minor in Humanities?"

"Yeah."

Otabek smiles, "So did I."

The loops of his Ls and Gs are thin and slanted. Between the two, Yuri has an easier time reading his writing than his own. It almost looks like calligraphy, if he tilts his head a little. It's beautiful, just like—

No. Yuri's not going there. He excuses himself from Otabek a little huffily, stalking outside the room and choosing to check on his patients and away from Otabek's confused look. He's worried about one of his younger patients, a young girl named Annabelle.

He fiddles with her patient's drip as the ER settles down into a quiet buzz. He has a lot of respect for Otabek, but it would be awkward for their professional relationship if he were to confess and fuck things up. Yuri sighs.

His patient blinks awake, "Doctor?"

"Sorry to wake you," He crouches and pats the seven-year-old's hand, watching her green eyes flutter open, "Go back to sleep, Doctor is going to leave now."

He catches sight of a story book on an empty chair and looks back at her. She's sitting up now, staring at him with a scared expression. She's alone in a large hospital surrounded by large beeping machines while her parents get some much needed rest before they go to work in a few hours. 

Yuri falters.

"Lana," He calls to the nurse in charge, peeking out of the curtains as Lana's head snaps up from her computer, "If Dr. Altin asks for me, tell him I'm with Annabelle."

"Of course."

Annabelle scoots to the edge and waits patiently for him as he places her charts at the foot of her bed, pulling on the bed rails so she's able to see the illustrations.

Yuri flips to the first page of the heavy storybook, clearing his throat, " _Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal thank you very much...._ "

 

"Yurio!"

"Die," He kicks Victor's shins as he moves away from the door. Yuuri enters his apartment and takes off his shoes near the front as Yuri stirs his stew vigorously in the kitchen.

"We brought dessert," Yuuri says. "It's your favorite."

"Matcha ice cream?"

Yuuri nods.

"Well, okay," Yuri apologizes and watches as Victor theatrically limp to the small dining table, moving textbooks and case studies aside to make room for plates. His apartment is by no means messy, but it's well-lived, with a tall cat apartment in one corner and the open space strewn with mouse toys.

"First month of residency okay?"

"Yeah, no thanks to you. Dr. Altin is way better at suturing than you are."

Victor gasps, aghast, as Yuuri calmly spoons some potatoes into his mouth, "Yuuri! Yurio is being mean!"

"I peeked into your surgery, Vitya, Otabek  _does_ have nice techniques."

"I thought you didn't like him, Yuri, why the sudden change of heart?"

Yuri blinks, spoon halfway up into his mouth, "What do you mean I don't like him? He's great."

Victor raises one brow. Yakov must have told him then.

He opens his mouth and waits for something to come out, sighing weakly, "He's...a lot nicer than I thought."

Victor and Yuuri do one of their annoying telepathic communication where they talk via eyes and eyebrow wiggling, forgetting that Yuri is there. He clears his throat pointedly and kicks Victor's shins again when they don't respond.

"OW!"

"Be glad I'm not stabbing your hands."

"You're so violent," Victor grumbles, "Anyway, Otabek will be with me for a major surgery all of tomorrow, so don't expect him to be alert and coherent when he comes out." 

" _Hey_ , that's my mentor you're messing with."

"And he's my  _student_ ," Victor bats his lashes, "I  _am_ in charge of his fellowship, Yura. That's what he came here to do."

Right. Fellowship. Their professional relationship.

Yuri keeps his mouth shut and goes back to his stew, kicking Victor every few minutes to knock the gloating smile off his face.

"You're quiet."

Yuri looks up from a case study during another graveyard shift to see Otabek lean back on his chair, stretching his arms up as his scrub shirt rides up. Yuri keeps his eyes on his papers with an iron will.

"Yeah."

Otabek is playing around with his food, a thin paring knife in his hand as he plays with an apple. He has a habit of doing that, Yuri realizes. The other day Otabek had handed him a pear with a rabbit carved on the skin.

"Is that a hobby?"

Otabek laughs quietly, peeking over his shoulder to make sure that Seung-gil is still snoring away on his couch, "No, it's a bad habit now. Back in pre-med I used to carve patterns into fruits to familiarize myself with the scalpel."

A cat carved into another apple. A fish with intricate scales. Peeled grapes. An orange with a tiger's face, its canines sharp. This man is absolute insane and Yuri adores him so much that he could punch himself with it. And he doesn't even know it.

When Otabek succumbs to sleep, Yuri drapes his white coat over him as dawn breaks outside.

 

"Yuri Plisetsky, a word."

Lilia's beady eyes beckons him to sit down. Yuri stiffly moves his limbs, his knees knocking into the underside of her table, expecting the worst. Maybe Victor had ratted him out that he's been making Otabek's life miserable or—

"Do you plan to go into surgery?"

"I'm sorry?"

She repeats her question. He blinks, "I don't know. Where is this coming from?"

"Dr. Altin," She says generously, "Is willing to take you into a surgery with him starting tomorrow afternoon. You will, of course, not be participating, but he's allowing you to watch and make notes so long as you don't disturb Dr. Nikiforov."

With that, she kicks him out into the busy ER department, stuffing some forms into his hands.

"You're watching his surgery?" Minami gasps the next afternoon when they're visiting their alma mater, about to sit in a tutorial and talk to younger med students about the horror and reality of waking up five minutes before they're supposed to be running out of the house to start their shift. Yuri's yawning, tiredness permeating from every pore as he spent the past few nights reading up notes on trauma surgery. 

The thought that Lilia had asked if he wanted to go into trauma surgery must mean that Otabek is writing good things about him. If he's interested enough, maybe, just maybe, he could become a surgeon and swipe a fellowship from the surgical department without badgering his references to write good reviews. 

"Mhm."

"I'm so  _jealous_."

"Mhm."

"Do you think the head surgeon will allow us to record it? I really want to see the suturing skills everyone's been praising about!"

"Victor's the head surgeon, go ask him yourself."

"No," Minami shivers, "He scares me. You're so brave for talking to him."

Yuri snorts under his breath. Minami hasn't seen Victor walk out of the hospital showers with the most amazing post-shower hair. If pictures were leaked, his fan base with the staff would definitely go under.

 

The patient is a thirty year old man who has a foreign body embedded through his right upper chest and exiting on his right lower back. Blood pressure is stable, pupillary reflex present, but his lungs doesn't sound too good so they're rushing him into the OR. Otabek tells him all of this as they scrub up side by side, shucking aside their dress shirt and pants as Yuri shoves his feet into rubber white crocs and ties his hair up into a bun, surgical cap clamped in his teeth.

"Yuri, stand here," Victor motions him around to where the perfusionist is hovering at the head of the operating table, little ways away from the machines showing the patient's vitals. There's no nicknames or heart smiles. Yuri takes his position wordlessly as a scrub nurse runs up to Otabek and ties the surgical gown around his waist.

As the anesthesiologist makes final checks, Otabek and Victor hover near a light box where the patient's MRI is shown, the metal cord the width of a quarter millimeters away from the right pulmonary vein. Yuri's palms are sweating even though he's not the one touching the scalpel.

They use a handsaw to trim the metal rod to the shortest possible size without nicking into actual skin, leaving enough length to be pulled form the front. Otabek will pull the metal while Victor immediately goes in to staunch the bleeding and stitch the blood vessels from the back. Then Otabek will do the front and they hopefully will finish without any complications.

Otabek holds the metal frame, brown eyes expressive as his surgical mask hides his mouth. Yuri watches him, not knowing what expression he has on.

"Now."

A clean yank, then everyone descends with gauze and hemostats.

"Suction," Victor calmly states.

"More gauze," Otabek orders, a metal crunching sound present as he clamps off the large vein and starts stitching the rip. Yuri watches on as the scrub team seem to follow him without needing any directions, suctioning near his needle but never pushing into his elbows.

"Yuri."

He walks quickly, looking over Otabek's shoulder, "Yes?"

"I've finished tying the arteries on my end," He murmurs gently, "Now I have two choices: use a surgical stapler or the needle and thread. In this case, because the patient's vital are now stable and every artery has been closed, I'm going to use a needle and thread."

Yuri nods along; Otabek's stitching is nearly, if not better, than a stapler.

"What kind of stitch?"

"What would you use?"

"Subcutaneous and then a normal suture on the epidermis."

"Do you want to do the epidermis?"

Yuri blinks, opens his mouth. Closes it. He can't tell how many nurses are smiling at him from their covered mouths but he feels a tangible grin from them.

"Victor?"

Victor doesn't look up but his eyebrows goes up, "Hm?"

"Would you allow Yuri to stitch the patient up?"

Victor considers Yuri a little, tilting his head to the left slightly, "...I don't see why not. Leo, gown him."

Yuri beams and eagerly waits for Otabek to finish, lifting his arms as a tall nurse comes towards him with a mint green surgical gown.

 

" _You participated?_ " Minami hollowly asks, leaning so close to Yuri over the table that their noses are only an inch apart. He's wearing a gaudy yellow dress shirt with patterns of red stars, and Yuri's retinas are burning at the hideous print, "You actually participated in Dr. Nikiforov's and Dr. Altin's surgery?"

Yuri grins, waiting for his shift to start as he closes Lilia's quarterly review of his performance. He's passing with flying colours so far, especially in the patient diagnostic department, "Yep."

Minami lets out a little shriek, bouncing in place as Seung-gil waspishly orders him to shut up from where he's trying to nap on the couch, "Tell me how it was! What did you do? How was it?"

Minami hangs onto every word until Chris pokes his head into the room and pulls him away from Yuri. By then, Yuri realizes that he's fifteen minutes late and rushes outside, attending to his rounds and several walk-in patients suffering from allergic reactions and an old woman who tripped over her cat before noticing that Otabek wasn't in the department.

Odd.

On his break, he tries calling Otabek's cell phone, checking the staff schedule posted on the bulletin board. The operator tells him to leave a message.

Stumped and slightly worried because Victor has schedule another large operation that afternoon, he begs Seung-gil for a favour.

"You want me to what?"

"Take over my shift until I drag Otabek here," Yuri wrings his hands in the empty on-call room, "Please? I'll house-sit your dog next time you're out of town."

Seung-gil makes a face, "I'm a  _surgeon_."

"You specialized in emergency medicine! Come on," Yuri begs again, "Please?"

"No, I want to nap."

"Come on, Seung-gil! He allowed me to participate in a surgery the other day!" Yuri widens his eyes pleadingly, "I'll buy that really expensive dog treat from uptown."

Seung-gil concedes reluctantly, taking Yuri's charts as Yuri grabs his car keys, shrugging on his bomber jacket. He has Otabek's address written on a slip of paper ready to be punched into his GPS. Hopefully, it'll be a straight forward drive.

His windshield wipers are working furiously to beat water out of his vision. Yuri is drenched five seconds after he left his car, knocking on the front door of a two-story townhouse located between a park and the downtown area.

"Otabek!" Yuri pummels the wood with his fist, "You have a surgery! Come out!" He increases his knocks, jiggling the door knob when the front door opens innocently with click.

He gapes in disbelief at the unlocked door.

"Otabek!" He calls out from the foyer, peering through the dark, narrow hallway. There's a set of stairs leading up towards the second floor on his left and what looks like the living room and kitchen straight ahead. "Otabek!"

Something inside moans, sounding pained. 

Yuri slips off his shoes and runs into the living room with damp socks, finding a large lump on the couch.

"Otabek?" His skin is hot and clammy. He's sweated through the dress shirt he's wearing. Yuri checks his breathing and tries to shake him awake, "Hey, wake up."

Otabek cracks open his eyes, gazes at him, and rolls over, "You're here again."

Yuri hauls him up into a sitting position, grabbing the nearest bottle of pill to shake out two fever-reducers, tackling the first problem at hand, "I'll call Victor and tell him to get another surgeon. Take  _this_ ," He states this firmly, making sure that Otabek's listening to him, "And I'll be right back."

Out in the hallway, Seung-gil is irritated but agrees to take the rest of his shift. Victor tells Yuri to not worry and will switch Otabek for JJ. Yuri locks the front door and stuffs his jacket in the hall closet, finding only jackets Otabek has worn before. The hospital rumour mills guessed if Otabek was single, and it seems that it's true.

It's been a long time since Yuri had gotten sick himself, but Otabek is a patient, so it shouldn't be too hard to take care of his co-worker.

"Too hot," Otabek mumbles when Yuri goes back to the living room and asks why he hasn't taken his pills. The back of his head is sticking up like grass, and he's breathing more laboured now that he's awake. Yuri wants to check if there's any mucus in the lungs but he left his stethoscope in the car. 

Upon closer inspection, he also doesn't like how sweaty Otabek is since he's woken up. If possible, he's even more sticky than before.

"Do you want to take a cold shower?"

Otabek nods and Yuri hustles him to the second floor, entering his clean bedroom and digging out a t-shirt and sweatpants as Otabek starts the shower. From the way his work bag had been carelessly tossed on the floor next to the couch, he must have collapsed right after they finished their shift. 

Yuri peeks into his fridge, startled at how empty it is, and pulls out the ingredients for tofu soup. He checks the cupboards for spices and rolls his eyes when there's a large stash of instant noodles. Figures.

He nearly flings the soup ladle over his shoulder when a pair of arm wraps around his middle. Normally, the hospital carries a no-scent policy so he could only smell a very faint scent of bergamot and cedar on Otabek's clothes when they're squished side by side working on a patient. Now, Otabek smells clean and is rubbing his stubble onto the exposed skin of Yuri's neck. 

There's something pressing on his pulse. It might be a mouth.

Yuri focuses all of his  _holy-shit_ - _what-the-fuck-is-going-on_  energy into stirring the soup. At least Otabek's breathing sounds lighter if anything. His skin didn't feel so warm anymore, and by the fact that he's acting weirdly, Otabek must be convinced that this is a dream.

"Go sit."

Otabek mouths against his shoulder, opening one eye lazily, "No," His lips curves up, "Come with me."

"You're a giant man baby," Yuri shuffles sideways, juggling the pot and a bowl with a spoon in both hands as Otabek doesn't loosen his hold. "You call yourself a doctor? How come you couldn't take care of yourself when you're sick?"

"I'm a surgeon."

"Eat your soup," Yuri viciously growls, leaving Otabek on the couch as he goes back to the kitchen to grab himself a glass of water. Now free, he takes a look around the house, finding every corner covered in teetering piles of medical textbooks and novels, classic things all doctor's have in their houses, him included.

Otabek's undergraduate and medical degree are hidden behind a pile of books on motorcycles, their spine worn. The only pictures in the house are of different countries— so it is true; Otabek is well-traveled. 

"Finished?" He walks back to the couch. Otabek nods and Yuri pushes him up the stairs a second time, cupping his hands around his waist. "You should sleep. I've switched your shift tomorrow with JJ. I can review my rounds with Mila," He says as Otabek slithers into his sheets. His bedroom is a little empty looking, "Feel better soon."

"Yuri," Otabek rasps.

He turns around and patiently waits. Otabek motions him to come closer.

When he's at Otabek's side, his world spins and he lands on a soft mattress as Otabek wiggles his way into his arms. Yuri stares at the ceiling, shocked.

" _Otabek_."

"Beka."

"Beka," Yuri firmly says, trying to unearth his arms, "I'm not your wife."

"That's right, you're a dream," Otabek laughs into Yuri's chest, smiling sadly, "I wonder what the real you would say if I have enough courage to confess."

The mattress is soft, and Yuri gazes at the dark ceiling, listening to the rain outside as Otabek shifts a little.

"Your heart is beating really fast."

"I have a case of arrhythmia," His cheeks feel like they can fry an egg.

"Tachycardia. It's fast," Otabek yawns. 

Yuri runs his hands over Otabek's hair, feeling the peach fuzz of his undercut, "Time for the patient to sleep."

Otabek tries to fight against the lull of medication, eyelashes fluttering, "No."

Yuri feels his cheeks lift into a smile, "The sooner you get better, the sooner you go back to saving people," He then hums a little tune, watching Otabek's eyelids slide shut. His fingers stop carding through his hair settling itself naturally on Otabek's neck where his pulse is even.

"Yuri."

Yuri drags himself awake, "Yeah?"

Otabek doesn't answer. Yuri sighs and closes his eyes, letting his mind plunge into the darkness. 

 

When he wakes, the skies are dark, his head is fuzzy and he knows that he's caught whatever bug Otabek had. His tongue is parched and his throat itches.

He feels like he's been stomped on by an elephant.

Otabek is warily looking at him, sitting on the edge of the mattress as he presses a half-melted ice pack to Yuri's forehead. 

"How are you feeling?"

"Better," Otabek says, pink in the cheeks, "Why were you in my bed?"

Yuri swats Otabek's hands away as he sits up, bones aching. His voice sounds like he's been gargling on rocks, "You were the one who pulled me."

Otabek closes his eyes, brows coming in together as he murmurs painfully, "I thought that was a dream."

Yuri tries to lighten the mood, drinking the glass of water Otabek hands him, "You're a cuddler when you're sick."

"I am too, apparently, a giant man baby."

They end up staring at each other, neither of them willing to break the eye contact. Yuri blinks first since his eyes are itchy, and Otabek releases a deep sigh and scrubs his face with both hands, "I'm sorry about everything. Seung-gil gave me a call and told me that you were worried sick for me and rushed over to make sure that I was at the hospital for my scheduled surgery. I know that our relationship is supposed to be strictly professional but I couldn't help but fall—"

"Whoa, whoa," Yuri stops him, "It's okay."

"It's okay?" Otabek peeks from his hands, shock colouring his voice, " _It's okay?_ "

"Erm yeah, I mean," He picks at the duvet, turning into a tomato, "I like you too."

Otabek is smiling at him when Yuri gathers up the courage to look up, smile lines present on his face, "Oh."

If possible, Yuri feels his face heat even more. Otabek's smile widens until he swivels his head to the side, trying to control it. Yuri's heart is melting, either from the fever or Otabek himself when Otabek leans in and kisses his cheek, dragging his mouth closer and closer before—

Yuri jerks back, "I'm sick!"

Otabek rolls his eyes, "I was the one who gave you that fever. I won't be sick a second time."

"You know, this is your fault. I seem to forget the most basic knowledge whenever I'm around you."

Otabek shoots him a boyish grin, "Like that time with the forceps?"

"Unfortunately."

"Don't worry, I know you're competent," Otabek fluffs his pillows and eases him back, "Sleep Yuri, get well soon."

He shakes his head and growls when Otabek plays Enya, her voice lulling him as it croons out of the stereo in the corner. He watches Otabek rub circles onto his palms, adjusting his blanket and ice pack.

"Go sleep."

"No."

Otabek smiles, knowing that he has the upper hand. Yuri shouldn't have taken another fever reducer, regretting his decision as his eyes feel heavy once more.

"Beka," He mumbles, seconds away from fading away, "Remind me to buy dog treats."

 

Otabek calls in sick for both of them, and Yuri spends another day dousing himself with cold showers until his fever breaks and he's curled up on the couch with Otabek, sharing a throw blanket as they watch medical dramas and roll their eyes at the theatrics of it.

Yuri's phone, once it revives after a good charge, has forty-seven messages, forty-five of them from Mila freaking out about how Otabek is also taking a sick day, does Yuri know anything about this, the nurses are foaming at the mouths.

"Delivering a baby in the back of an uber."

"True. New York has really nasty grid-lock traffic and I was walking past the car when the driver panicked."

"Saving that foreign minister on a translat—"

"True."

"Prolapsed uterus in a cow."

"True. I also helped my sister— she's a vet— deliver two bull calves from a heifer when the nearby vet couldn't get to them in time due to a tornado," Otabek says calmly, washing the dishes and immersing his arms in soap suds as Yuri sips his tea, shaking his head fondly. 

"Were there  _anything_ the rumours got wrong?"

Otabek pauses. Asides from being couch potatoes, they'd spent an hour wandering the supermarket buying actual food for Otabek's fridge, grabbing some ice cream afterwards before Yuri cooked. It was a comfortable date, and Yuri is looking forward to taking Otabek somewhere nicer next time.

"The techs in radiology kept asking me if I ever modeled, but I've only appeared on my campus newspaper."

"What was the article about?"

Here, Otabek blushes, "'... _Top 10_   _Best Looking Med Students in Hopkins_.'"

"What number were you?" Yuri grins widely.

Otabek looks pained.

"...One." 

Yuri wheezes, whipping out his phone to find the article when Otabek lets out a yelp and wrestles him for the phone. 

Everyone in the on-call room hollers when they walk in hand-in-hand the next day. The nurses pass money around to the winner of the betting pool as Seung-gil discreetly shoots Yuri a thumbs up. Otabek pulls his surgery excuse and leaves them, but not without soundly kissing Yuri first, all the nurses sighing enviously.

Yakov sidles up to Yuri, smug as he hands him some charts, "You managed to get along well with Dr. Altin in the end."

Yuri rolls his eyes but nods, taking off to do morning rounds, giddy and walking forward with a spring in his step.


End file.
